KBKB wrote: »

Sindala wrote: »

Well we will soon get a new boost of players when SWtoR shuts down next year.
How do I know this?
Well Disney owns Lucasarts and they have announced they are closing the games division in the new year and since they run SWtoR with Bioware then Bioware either has to buy the game out or agree to close it.
Personally seeing the state of the game now I think Bioware will close it in favour of the new project they are working on.

So there you go, were not in half as bad shape now are we

You sure they just released an expansion..

Its been done before, just look at what NCSOFT did to City of Heroes.

This is by far the most amusing thread I have seen the last month!

Seriously, the amount of misinformed people ("Wahh! PvP forced on PvE!"), people with outstandingly amusing rumours ("SW:TOR shutdown next year, it's true!") and general running-around-and-circulating-cliches is an absolutely wonderful hommage and comedy routine. Hilarious . Thanks for this, I really needed something to cheer me up this morning.

(Regarding the SW:TOR shutdown - it's one of the ten most profitable MMOs worldwide currently, thanks to its coercive f2p model where playing the sheer content alone is indeed f2p but you pay for every single comfort feature, so shutting it down would be losing a huge heap of income)

Where can I send an ingame donation to for this thread?

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

An increase, perhaps, but from a very low number. It's still pretty sparsely populated, and over the holidays I have not seen a great increase in the number of people in any zones, neither in lvl 1-50 or in VR zones.

I've only been playing since the 10th of this month, but Stonefalls seems far more...lively*...now (past 3 days) when I go back as apposed to just 2 weeks or so ago when I started there. I stay up till 3 or 4 am central playing - 2 weeks ago it seemed dead-ish around this time, lately it's seemed busier. I'm sure it was just a Christmas rush, though.

Not that my two cents matter much, I don't even know what it was like in November.

*Lively - Filled with trolls, guildspam and belligerance that makes me glad I'm in The Rift now.

Still waiting on the predicted Wildstar apocalypse we were supposed to be seeing earlier this year

KBKB wrote: »

First tick, was the loyalty system in place (crappy cosmetic pets to entice you into staying)

Second tick, the reviews this game has received around the internet

Third tick, Your growing inactive friend/guild lists.

Now the 6 Month sub option is goneeee with only 3 month/ 1 month remaining

Could it be @ZOS intendeds to be F2P by June next year?

No

I suppose it depends on what you really think is 'survivable' for ESO as a model.

Can a f2p system, notorious for unstable results (unless you foster a complete pay to win or form essential QoL items) really continue to develop the game? Voice overs? New area's (scale) or the systems that were discussed in the past -within a decent time frame? F2p/B2p isnt the best business decision here. Works for a game like gw2, with less content complexity and volume. Not so much when you are trying to build something up like ESO.

Swtor actually grew. Funny how that system there is an 'illusion' of f2p though isnt it? They had no choice to go that way, yet in reality, what a smart decision. To keep it, at its core, a sub investment; with that 'option' of not paying and missing out a great deal as result. Its not what ''fixed it'' directly though. It merely gave them breathing room to reach their vision. Thats something that ESO needs too. The real thing people arent willing to give, is time.

Can't say im a fan of this, 'ZoS' dont care about us. If, like some of us Tamriel Foundry folks, you'd met some of the staff before launch, got amongst them and spent time understanding - you'd know how much they care. You'd also have a better idea of why they dont want to comment right now. I'm not pointing fingers, not everyone is that lucky. Nor saying its been perfect. Just know that an awful lot of them care a great deal about this game and the people playing it. So becareful not to generalize. Yes they are a company, but one made of people, something which is easily forgotten.

Many of you are way too negative, dont doomsay. Try switching it up and being positive once in a while

If you dont want f2p, help make the game better - dont pull it down. Negativity is contagious. But you know, so is positivity.

Please don't ever make this game f2p. I've seen to many games and it's community going downhill due to it.
If they lose the subscription rather make the game b2p but never f2p.

Here is a great model for ESO:

• Make the game B2P for $60, with a cash shop that only sells cosmetic items e.g costumes, pets, dyes etc, XP and AP boosters, bank/inventory/character slot increases and a starter mount. These can be purchased either with real money, or with a currency called Ouroboros Points.
• The main way to earn Ouroboros Points is buying them with real money. Alternatively, a small amount is awarded if you log in each month (Not as much as the subscriber's chest.)
• Introduce an optional membership program at a cost of $10 a month. This membership program grants you the max amount of character slots and a much bigger amount of bag and bank space, both of which's gold prices are now discounted. It also grants you a rewards chest every month, provided you still have sub time left. The chest contains a lump sum of Ouroboros Points, 5 XP and AP boosters each, and 3 random items from the cash shop of which you can choose what they should be e.g Costume, Dye etc.
• Being a subscriber grants access to the PTS as well. This encourages more people to subscribe since they want to see the new content earlier.
• Imperial Edition has been changed slightly. The Imperial race is now open to everyone, and they have been replaced by a set of gear to be used by starting players, but they are only optimal for levels 1-8. This way, you don't get a significant advantage over other lowbies in PvP. Additionally, Mara's Rings have been replaced by 10 XP boosters, which are BoE meaning that you can give some to your friend.

I still prefer P2P, but I do think that this is the best model if ZOS has to drop the sub fee. Even if you aren't a subscriber, your access to content isn't gated to subscribers only (Except for PTS, but it isn't really "game content" being locked off, because you wouldn't really be playing on the PTS as your main server, would you?). Being a subscriber only grants you additional rewards, rather than exclusive content, contrary to the beliefs of some other MMOs out there. Lots of existing subscribers will want to keep subscribing, and lots of players will still be brought into the game.

I don't see why this model wouldn't work, but again, I still think P2P is the best model unless ESO dips under 500k subscribers, which is very unlikely to happen.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

Despair9 wrote: »

ESO would have annouced F2P or just shut down if they were below 500k, so this argument is totally invalid. Saying it's below 100k though, this game would shut down in a day not a month.

I'm not sure how you can know that for certain, but simple observation tells me that the megaserver does not even fill one phase in most places, and it is obvious that only a few thousand people are still doing PvP even during peak hours. How you can reconcile those observations with anything close to one million active players is beyond me, and unless you can explain your reasoning, I maintain my opinion that your estimates are more than a smidgen too optimistic.

But please explain if you can. I have been playing since launch and don't want this game to fail.

Most VR zones are probably one phase, pvp is some thousands.
However numbers of players online is just an small faction of the number of subs. You can see this yourself in the guild rooster for an new guild or a guild who cleared inactives. Perhaps 20% on at primetime, and remember that guild inactive might still subscribe even play. Numbers of subs would be 7-10 times higher than active in primetime.

The 500K limit was something EA came up with for SWTOR, EVE has less than 500K players

Anyway F2P before console release would make zero sense then you could cash in on all the console sales and subs

SFBryan18 wrote: »

What if when they went B2P, they only allow subscribers to sell items in the kiosks?

What if kiosks cost RL money then?

Despair9 wrote: »

Actually ESO has seen some big increase in subs in December.

Elder Scrolls Online has 51% more subs in December atm than in November.

Also it's more played than Oktober and September as well.

I don't think ESO is going F2P, removal of 6 month sub option was a genious economic move, they were too much generous anyway. Either take it off or make it more expensive, you now know how they chose.

Also my speculation on subs is based on ESO Steam Charts. I love to think Steam is about 1/1000 of total population of ESO, so my estimation is we are either getting close to 800k, or ESO already surpassed 1mil subs.

With the Champion System and Justice System on the horizon, ESO will double the revenue and subs in no time. Also 2015 will be a very strong year for ESO, we might finish it in the West even better than WoW. WoW has at the moment about 3mil subs in the West, possibly less already. I'd say they WoW will be between 1-1.5mil subs in the West at the end of 2015.

http://steamcharts.com/app/306130

PS: About consoles and how ESO is going to be F2P there. ESO on Consoles won't be F2P, they will have to pay only 1 sub, and that is ESO SUB. They won't have to pay for either PSN or XBOX Live.

I wouldn't use a Steam chart with 1100 people playing in average in a month to prove the game is doing well lol...

I know Steam is a minuscule fraction of the playerbase... but still... that chart looks like an Early Access PoS game's chart lol...

Divad Zarn wrote: »

Tell that to WoW how its "unwise" to put PvP on the PvE field. PvP is one of the most important thing which increasing MMO quality + player numbers and everyone can be sure, that when ZOS add more PvP (not only that trash boring Cyrodill), like arenas/world pvp etc. sub numbers will increase like x10, even more by time.

No it is not the most important. Its secondary. For wow, the community is one that is extremely poor quality, even worse than SWTOR. The little strategy I mentioned did happen and pvp'er were leaving the pvp servers to go to the pve servers because it was so out of control. Though, they have placed some safe guards,(shield of the risen, and city guards) the pvp server is no where as populated as the pve to this day. This game was Age of Conan. For the flag options: pvp'ers have worked around that limitation for some time now. More so in a game that allows mods.
Truthfully I really hope you are right, I truly do, this is a great game, and hate to see it spiral downhill.

KBKB wrote: »

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

1. A lot of sub based games do that
2. Recent reviews are more favorable than the release ones
3. You mean all the people that keep coming back?
4. Dunno never used it. Might make sense to get rid of it
5. 60 day time card is on sale.

Yep it's screwed

1. Maybe..
2. You need to hit the ground running with MMOs the gaming market isn't forgiving
3. The number of people who have came back still pales to the numbers that have left and are leaving. I think 1.6 is make or break for this game.
4. Remove a long term sub option? how does that make sense when looking for the future.

Further more ZOS have never released sub numbers, estimates had sub numbers around 700k. Still if you were doing well you would want to share it with the world to entice more people to join not hide it which seems plausible if you are on the decline.

Removing the long term sub option makes sense if 1. Nobody is using it and 2. The way ZOS did the sub options was the linger term you purchased the bigger the discount. Most MMOs don't have a discount for longer time, its just paying all those months at once and calling it good. So to remove the long term option whether people were using it or not means those that were will either leave, or pay the next longest which if I remember correctly was like a 3 or 4 month option. So they still get a discount on their sub just not as a high for a 6 month option which in turn makes more money for ZOS.